Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Game Day: Wabash College campus and the city of Crawfordsville, Ind.

Here's a confession, although anyone who follows this blog regularly would hardly be surprised.

A lot of the enjoyment I get from my ongoing "tour" of Indiana small colleges on football game days comes from shooting the non-game campus scenes. I've never taken time to seriously consider the "why" of that, but I suspect that much of it has to do with how it rekindles fond memories of my years in college at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin. UWEC has an upper and lower campus, and the separation of the two -- by both both height and gradient -- is dramatic. Upper campus is where most of the dormitories are located, and several are close to the bluff overlooking the Chippewa River, which dissects the campus.

I've been in Indiana for more than three decades now, yet those college memories remain vivid and endearing to this day. The room where I stayed freshman year looked out onto the Chippewa River below, and I could see the then-new Fine Arts Center on the other side of the river, as well as most of the city proper ... and on a clear day, much beyond. It was breathtaking in autumn ... and on those picture-postcard snowfall days, and in Wisconsin, there were plenty of those.

But I digress. The above serves merely to introduce and background the renewal of this blog's tradition to include non-game campus images in posts separate with game action in my visits to Indiana small colleges and their respective communities. True, I covered this territory at Wabash to a great extent in 2011 in my visit to photograph the Little Giants' win over Wittenberg, but ... I'm not one who thinks he can cover, or "find," everything in one sweep. In fact, I'm sure I'd find new, interesting things on each and every campus if I made return visits to them all.

So today's post features some new images not only from the Wabash campus, but also in the Crawfordsville downtown area, including the Montgomery Count Courthouse. Leading off the post is a new, low-angle perspective of the college's iconic chapel, exploiting dramatic, very late-afternoon sunlight. This was taken after the game.

Above and below: Photos I took as I approached campus on game day Saturday, about an hour before kickoff. This is at the northeast corner of campus, at Grant and Wabash avenues. The image below is a tighter composition of the welcoming sign and garden.

Above: The view toward campus from just past the welcoming sign above.

Above and below: Instead of following the sidewalk above toward the stadium on the south end of campus, I kept walking west along Wabash Avenue, coming across these pregame cookout scenes on the north side of the street.

Above: Still on Wabash Avenue, this is Trippett Hall, the official welcoming center that also houses admissions and financial aid. This building opened in August 2002.

Above and below: Differing views of the Detchon Center for International Studies, located at the northeast corner of the campus mall.

Above: Two views of the Lilly Library, on the west side of the campus mall.

Above: The entrance to the campus bookstore.

Above: First Christian Church, at Wabash Avenue and Walnut Street.

Above: A tight facade shot of First Church of the Nazarene, just west of First Christian Church on Wabash Avenue.

Above: The Carnegie Musuem of Crawfordsville at 222 S. Washington St., which served as the city's public library for many years until 2005, when the library moved to expanded facilities across the street ... and pictured below.

Above: The front facade of the new city of Crawfordsville Public Library. A merging of three images in high-dynamic range (HDR) software, this image reflects the movement of traffic on Washington Street.

Above: Also on South Washington Street, the facade of businesses facing west, catching direct sun-setting light.

Above: The front facade of Milligan's Flowers and Gifts at 115 E. Main Street, about a half block east of South Washington Street.

Above and next three below: Different views of the Montgomery County Courthose.

Above: Interesting late-afternoon sun play on a business facade in the downtown area.

About me

I was a longtime career newspaperman -- reporter, writer and editor -- who enjoys photography as a hobby and creative outlet. I grew up in Wisconsin and lived there for 18 years, including stints in news radio right out of college and a year editing a weekly newspaper, for which I also took most of the photographs. After a three-year stint at the daily newspaper in Muscatine, Iowa, I spent 33 years as a reporter, editor and copy editor for The Indianapolis Star before retiring in 2012. In July 2017, after almost 39 years in Indy, I moved to a warmer climate in a rural community outside Raleigh, N.C. Photo Potpourri is an endeavor to meld my prose background with the images I pursue as an avid photography enthusiast -- with a decided emphasis on the images. In the eight years since Photo Potpourri launched, the blog has evolved into a sort of photographer's log, chronicling the opportunities -- public and personal -- that I've had to photograph people, places and things, mostly in and around Indianapolis. I'm open to how the blog may continue to evolve in the months ahead. Twitter: konz2624; Email: joekonzIND@aol.com